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By Root 716 0

been hanging around this morning to see the tree cut down. A tree service is coming to saw down the tall tulip tree near the corner of the house. Dolores’s husband, Glenn, is having the tree cut down to make room for a workshop he plans to build. He has been stripping furniture, and he wants to begin making picnic tables to sell. But the tree cutting was scheduled for an inopportune time. It confuses Dolores. Later in the morning, she has an appointment with a gynecologist, and she is frightened. When the doctor she saw at the clinic two days earlier examined the lump in her breast, he advised seeing a specialist immediately. The lump has been there for several months, and it seems to change shape and move around. Dolores kept thinking it would go away. Then, after her friend Dusty Bivens urged her to see a doctor, Dolores became alarmed. Dusty had read an article in Ladies’ Home Journal about breast examinations. Dusty keeps up with medical news. She has had a D & C, a hysterectomy, and a gall bladder attack. She has to avoid spicy and greasy foods. Dolores has noticed that whenever women get together, they talk about diseases. Men never do. This is probably why Dolores is hesitant to tell Glenn about seeing the doctor. She has not mentioned the lump to him, the way sometimes women don’t tell their husbands they are pregnant until it has been confirmed by a doctor. They save the news for a special time. This is a scene Dolores has frequently seen in the movies, but she never knew anyone who did that. She had always told Glenn when she suspected she was pregnant. Now their three children are grown and married.

Of course, Glenn would be perfectly reasonable, pointing out the way Dusty tends to overreact. Once, when an earthquake was predicted for western Kentucky, where they live, Dusty went on an impromptu vacation with her children. They went to a dude ranch in Arizona, and Dusty took her new set of Teflon II pans with her. Dusty has a fearful nature, but she often does bold things, like taking off for the dude ranch, or enrolling in beauty school at the age of thirty-seven. She has even had an affair.

—

Near the house are three oaks, two maples, and an ash tree. The tulip tree, at the southeast corner, is the tallest, probably over eighty feet high. It is filled with plump green buds, resembling the pods in a movie about body snatchers Dolores saw on TV. Earlier in the week, when Jerry McClain from Jerry’s Tree Service said he would have to bring his climber out to bring the tree down, Dolores thought he was referring to some sort of machine, like a cherry picker.

“He means a guy who climbs trees,” Glenn explained to her later.

“I thought you sawed a tree down at the bottom.”

“No. It might fall on the house. They have to cut it down in sections and let ’em down on ropes.”

“Do you really have to cut it down?”

“Even if it wasn’t for the workshop, we’re lucky a twister hasn’t knocked that tree down on us.”

“But your timing’s way off,” said Dolores. “That tree’s about to bloom. Can’t you even let it get through with its blooming?”

—

Now Glenn is in the front yard with his father, Boyce Mullins, waiting for the tree crew to arrive. Boyce had tried to dissuade Glenn from hiring the expensive tree service, but Glenn hadn’t listened. Dolores turns the volume of the TV up. A trio of sexy girls is singing a disco spiritual, “I’ve Never Had Love Like This Before.” There are no words to the song beyond the title, which they sing repeatedly. Dolores turns on the leftover breakfast coffee. She considers calling Dusty, but it is too early. Dusty has night classes in Paducah, and she sleeps late.

Dolores takes a cup of coffee to the front porch and offers it to her father-in-law.

“I reckon you’re here to put your two cents’ worth in, Boyce,” she says, handing him the mug.

“Did you put sugar in it?”

“I stuck my finger in it. That sweetened it. Of course I put sugar in it. You think after all these years I don’t know how you take it?”

“My son here thinks he’s got to pay a fancy price to hire experts,” says Boyce, tasting